Sailing Around Australia; The salvage of Wendera; Inspiration or Madness?

Esperance Port from Bandy Creek Boat Harbour, with birds.

17/1/2014 Location; tied on to service Jetty, Bandy Creek Boat harbour, Esperance Western Australia

While tied on at Bandy Creek Boat Harbour in Esperance on our Sailing Around Australia adventures B1, Maree, Leanne and I met Ray Jaarola. Ray offered to come over to show us his videos and tell us the story of his salvage of the Spirit 380 Catamaran named Wendera.

In 2008 Paul Cochrane and his mate Chris, a boat builder, built a catamaran. It was a Spirit 380 designed by well known catamaran designer Craig Shionning. From all reports, it was well built, tastefully finished off and greatly admired.

After completing the boat, Paul, his wife and children set off from Newcastle in New South Wales. They sailed around Australia eventually ending up in the Mandurah Marina, where they met Brian (B1) and Maree and Brian (B2) and Eva.

With their young family growing, Paul and his wife decided to settle in WA and put their children into high school, so Wendera was put on to the market.

People from the east coast of Australia purchased Wendera. Contrary to all advice and definitely against Paul's wishes, the new owners packed up and set off to the eastern states aboard Winderra, within days of the sale being settled.

It is not absolutely sure how, but the boat was capsized somewhere south of Kangaroo Island South Australia. Some say that the boat hit a semi submerged sea container, while other’s say it was put side on to a massive swell, but either way it ended up upside down and the three people on board had to be rescued.

Amazingly the boat drifted for many months upside down, until it was located in the Southern Ocean, near the middle of the Great Australian Bight. Salvage rights were claimed by a cray fisherman who works in the area.

Ray Jaarola lives in Esperance WA on the western side of the Great Australian Bight. He has been involved in boats, diving and fishing most of his life. His father was a commercial diver who worked in the Geraldton area.

For many years, Ray had dreamt of owning a nice sailing catamaran and using it to take him to the old haunts his father used to work. Areas like the Abrohlis Islands off the Geraldton coast.

When news of Wendera and it’s salvage found Ray, he was immediately interested. He had some money tucked away from his work as an underground miner and saw this as his chance to get the catamaran that he had dreamt of.

Ray made an offer to the crayfisherman for Wendera, which by this time was upside down on a desolate beach some 900 kilometres to the east of Ray’s home town.

The true inspiration in this story comes from Ray’s determination to bring his boat home, repair it and live the sailing life.

It is hard to believe that anyone in their right mind would endure 13 or more trips 900 kilometres one way, with a band of mates Ray paid to attempt to get the catamaran right way up, then to refloat it.

One such attempt involved going out there with a frontend loader and trying to dig a pile of sand around the catamaran. Then lifting it over. This attempt failed and burnt up more of Ray’s life savings.

Each time he arrived at the site, he would be overwhelmed at the sight of the work they had done previously, needing to be done again. The sea continually brought in tonnes of weed, weaving it into a mat and covering the boat each time it was left. On each trip the first 2 days on site were spent digging the matted weed off the boat.

Also, he would be demoralised by the work of vandals, thieves and low lives that continued to ransack and vandalise his dream in his absence. Every time he returned to the boat more precious items had been removed and in that removal more damage had been done.

Almost as a last ditch effort, Ray got help from an Esperance Crane operator. Greens Crane Hire, Brad took the crane all the way out to the beached catamaran. They then had to find a suitable track down to the beach and had to pack underneath the crane to stop it toppling over. They then had to carefully and slowly lift the front of the catamaran, all the time frightened that the fiberglass structure would simply crack, crumble and fall into pieces on top of them.

After several attempts at lifting, then re-rigging the lifting ropes and operating the crane at absolute maximum capacity in soft beach sand, Wendera was finally lifted high enough out of the sand, turned and placed down on the beach, right side up.

A fisherman friend of Rays offered to bring his special towboat out and towed Wendera back to Esperance. That would be a six day round trip for Ray, his brother and Steve McWhirter, the owner of the towboat. By the time they got the tow under way, Ray had ran out of provisions and his foot infection was worsening.

Ray had to endure, two and a half days aboard what was basically 2 hulls connected by the bridgedeck, that was absolutely pounded from one wave to the next. The hull of Wendera also swayed violently from side to side as there were no rudders or keels to stabilize it during this trip.

His water pumps gave up early on and he drove himself to the point of utter exhaustion trying to bail water manually and continually for two days and nights.

Sleeping, eating or even finding somewhere on board that was dry were all impossible. Ray ended up going without sleep for 48 hours, living on adrenalin alone. The adrenalin being fed by thinking that any minute, on the next wave or the next sideways swing the boat would fall apart and he would be in the sea waiting for the tow boat to rescue him.

To his utter relief and with a mixture of elation, exhaustion, relief and success, Wendera was tied to the service jetty at Bandy Creek Boat harbour in Esperance on Christmas Eve 2012.

The personal cost to Ray has been far more than just financial. The infection that Ray got on one of his early trips out to his boat, worsened to the point he had to have his big toe amputated. Today Ray is still hobbling around with his foot in bandages.

We found Ray now living on board Wendera, which is on the hard stand under tarps. Ray is finding out the hard way and the expensive way, that to rebuild Wendera is a project equal to or maybe greater in magnitude than salvaging the boat from the Great Australian Bight.

To do it in Esperance which is some 750kilometres from expertise, parts and resources only makes it that much harder. While his mates and local contacts have been fantastic in helping him out, those from the far away city with the expertise that he really needs have done nothing but rip him off.

So, Inspiring or madness? It’s easy to judge and say he must have been or maybe still is a bit mad, for tackling such a project. But, maybe a little bit of madness can make the most inspiring dream come true.